Mission Assured Networking (MAN)

Daniel H. Wagner proposes to develop further the methods and the mathematics by which information and networks are dynamically evaluated to minimize the transmission or display of redundant, low-value data while assuring that high-value information, and subsystems are available. We propose the continued development of our non-probabilistic measure of value that encompasses all possible aggregates of the data and the semantics of the information in the network. We also propose to further our study the entropy and channel capacity based on our measure, similar to those developed by Claude Shannon in his Information Theory, for network optimization. In this phase of the effort, we will further the algorithms and data structures necessary to implement the process in a fully capable ad hoc network. We will develop an Information Flow Controller that capitalizes on an existing architecture and evaluate the performance in simulation of a sensor network designed to maintain situational awareness in an interrupted or limited communications environment.